{"id":24494,"date":"2022-04-06T15:28:44","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T20:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=24494"},"modified":"2022-04-06T15:28:44","modified_gmt":"2022-04-06T20:28:44","slug":"obit-watch-april-6-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=24494","title":{"rendered":"Obit watch: April 6, 2022."},"content":{"rendered":"

Bobby Rydell<\/a>, one of the big teen idols.<\/p>\n

Mr. Rydell and two other affable performers who became stars in those years, Frankie Avalon and Fabian, grew up within about two blocks of one another in South Philadelphia. Long after their days on the pop chart were past them, they enjoyed great success on the oldies circuit. The three had toured extensively together since 1985, billed as the Golden Boys, and were still performing together this year.<\/a>
\nMr. Rydell did not just have staying power; he also made a comeback after years of alcohol abuse, which he chronicled in his autobiography, \u201cBobby Rydell: Teen Idol on the Rocks\u201d (2016), written with the guitarist and producer Allan Slutsky. Near death, he had a kidney and liver transplant in July 2012. By that October he was back, singing on a cruise ship with Mr. Avalon. But five months later, he underwent cardiac bypass surgery. Some of his later appearances were charity promotions for organ donation.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

Mr. Rydell\u2019s recording prime encompassed the era roughly between 1959, when Elvis Presley was in the Army and Buddy Holly died in a plane crash, and 1964, when Beatlemania hit America. It didn\u2019t hurt that Dick Clark\u2019s \u201cAmerican Bandstand\u201d was broadcast in those years from Philadelphia, the home of Mr. Rydell\u2019s label, Cameo Records.<\/a>
\nMr. Rydell\u2019s repertoire included plaintive love ballads; slow, danceable tunes; occasional frenetic rockers like \u201cWild One\u201d and \u201cSwingin\u2019 School\u201d; and ageless songs like Domenico Modugno\u2019s 1958 hit \u201cVolare,\u201d which became Mr. Rydell\u2019s signature song in his later touring years.<\/a>
\nMr. Rydell was a pop phenomenon but hardly a cutting-edge rock star. Still, he sold a lot more records than some of those who were. Over the course of his recording career he placed 19 singles in the Billboard Top 40 and 34 in the Hot 100. His name alone could conjure up an entire era: The 1970s rock musical \u201cGrease,\u201d in both its Broadway and movie versions, was set in 1959 at the fictional Rydell High School.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…<\/p>\n

Columbia Pictures signed Mr. Rydell to a contract in 1961. But the only movie in which he made much of an impact was \u201cBye Bye Birdie,\u201d released in 1963 and based on the hit Broadway musical of the same name, which poked fun at show business in general and rock \u2019n\u2019 roll frenzy in particular. Mr. Rydell played Hugo Peabody, the meek high school steady of Kim McAfee, played by Ann-Margret, the small-town girl chosen to give the Elvis-like Conrad Birdie a kiss on national television.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alan J. Hruska<\/a>, lawyer, novelist, and one of the founders of Soho Press.<\/p>\n

Soho Press, based in Manhattan, has specialized in literary fiction and memoirs with a backlist that includes books by Jake Arnott, Edwidge Danticat, John L\u2019Heureux, Delores Phillips, Sue Townsend and Jacqueline Winspear. The company also has a Soho Teen young adult imprint and a Soho Crime imprint that publishes mysteries in exotic locales by, among others, Cara Black, Colin Cotterill, Peter Lovesey and Stuart Neville.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nehemiah Persoff<\/a>. THR<\/a>. He was 102.<\/p>\n

206 credits in IMDB<\/a>. If he wasn’t in everything, he was in lots of it. “Some Like It Hot”. “On the Waterfront”. “Law and Order”. “Barney Miller”. The good “Hawaii 5-0” multiple times. “Battlestar Galactica”. “Supertrain”. “Richie Brockelman, Private Eye”. “Quincy, M.E.” “Sword of Justice” (I was just thinking about that show the other day.) “Columbo”. “McCloud”. “McMillan and Wife”. (Trivia question I don’t have an answer for: how many actors appeared on all three of the initial shows in the “NBC Mystery Movie<\/a>” wheel?) “Mission: Impossible”.<\/p>\n

And, yes, “Mannix”. (“A Puzzle for One<\/a>“, season 6, episode 11.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bobby Rydell, one of the big teen idols. Mr. Rydell and two other affable performers who became stars in those years, Frankie Avalon and Fabian, grew up within about two blocks of one another in South Philadelphia. Long after their days on the pop chart were past them, they enjoyed great success on the oldies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150,4,195,31,40,16,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1970s","category-books","category-mannix","category-movies","category-music","category-obits","category-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24494"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24496,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24494\/revisions\/24496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}